


The Hangover

by musiclvr1112



Series: Friends to Lovers AU [3]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alcohol, Explicit Language, Hangover, Multi, Nath is pansexual, Sass, hipster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 21:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9091414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musiclvr1112/pseuds/musiclvr1112
Summary: The morning after a raging party, Chloé has to fill in Nathanaël on the events that took place the night before.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble taking place a couple years into their friendship.

“Chloé…?”

Chloé had just finished blow drying her hair after her morning shower when she had heard a weak voice calling her name from the living room. Still naked, she poked only her head out the bathroom door.

“Yeah, Nath?” she called. The artist had just begun to sit up from his resting place on the couch, but at the sound of her voice, he winced and gripped his head in pain. Chloé had to squeeze her lips together to stifle her laugh. “Sorry,” she said in a much softer voice. She very quickly threw on her bathrobe and made her way to the kitchen. The artist had gotten to a fully sitting position, but his head hung low between his knees. Chloé grabbed the pain killers and orange juice she had left sitting on the kitchen counter for him and made her way over to the couch, where she crouched down in front of him. “Here,” she whispered, “these will help.”

Weary eyes peeked open and he sighed in relief when he saw what she was offering. “You’re a life saver,” he murmured as he took the recovery items from her. She gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder and a pitiful smile before getting up and going back to her bathroom to finish her daily routine.

Chloé emerged fifteen minutes later with her hair up in a tidy ponytail, her makeup flawless, and wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans. It was a Saturday after all, she could let loose a little. Nathanaël was still sitting on the couch, though he appeared a lot better than he had before.

“Want something to eat?” she asked as she made her way back to the kitchen for her daily apple.

Nathanaël groaned. “Not yet. Thank you though.”

Chloé sunk her teeth into her apple to hold it while she set up her laptop at the dining room table. One of her hotel staff had been akumatized the week previous, apparently because they felt they were being treated unfairly in their cleaning position, and Chloé decided it best that she deal with that before it happened again. She opened up a word document she had started up on Thursday outlining a conduct training program she planned to instill with all of the hotel’s staff in supervisory positions. If she got it done before Sunday night, she might just be able to get the program started in the next week.

She was about three quarters of the way through her apple when the artist had finally trudged over, immediately resting his head on the table’s surface after plopping down in a chair across from her.

“How much did I drink last night?” he groaned, his voice muffled by the wall of hair protecting him from the outside world.

Chloé hummed in thought as she chewed on a bite of apple. “You know, I lost count around the body shots.” Nathanaël’s body went rigid. He picked up his head enough to reveal a mortified expression.

“Who did I…?”

Chloé smirked, having found the entire situation quite amusing. “Lex.”

His forehead found its way back to the table. “Oh thank goodness it wasn’t one of my exes.” Chloé laughed.

“No, what you did with your ex Ava was far more embarrassing.”

He rolled his head to scowl at her, no doubt for the laughter. “What’d I do with Ava?”

“Well…let’s just say now I know about your music career.”

Nathanaël closed his eyes in shame. “Vocals or guitar?”

“You play guitar?!” The artist winced in pain at her excited yelling.

“Guess I sang then,” he muttered. “At least tell me it wasn’t a stupid song.”

“You know, I would…but then I’d be lying.” Chloé giggled and took another bite of her apple as he groaned.

“What was it?”

“It was a version of that English song _Somebody That I Used to Know_. If I remember correctly, Ava referred to it as _Punk Goes Pop_?”

“ _Fuck_.”

Chloe laughed a bit before continuing. “Don’t worry, it didn’t actually sound that bad. At least…considering the blood alcohol levels of the people on stage. Your singing isn’t half bad.” _Understatement of the century_ , she thought, but she didn’t really want to get into that.

“Thanks,” he muttered. Chloé giggled into her next bite of apple, finding his misery far too amusing.

“But really though, how did you learn to sing so well?”

Nathanaël shrugged and willed himself upright enough to rest his head in his hand. “My mom put me in choir when I was little. No big deal.” A smile slowly crept upon her lips, causing him to scowl at her again. “What?”

“Did you have to wear a suit?” she poked. His scowl deepened. “You did! Oh that’s gold, little Nathanaël wearing a suit and singing in a choir. How adorable.”

“Shut up,” he said with a roll of his eyes. She laughed in response.

“And the guitar?”

“Hipster phase.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Hipster _phase_? Implying it ended?”

He glared at her again. “You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“Nathanael _I liked Panic! At the Disco before they were cool_ Kurtzberg??”

“Haha,” he said with a completely deadpan expression. “So how did I end up here instead of my place?”

Chloé shrugged and decided she would allow him to change the subject. “I didn’t trust you to take care of yourself after the party last night, so I brought you here.” She smirked at him. “Looks like I made the right decision.”

He smiled at her, a genuine appreciative smile. “Thanks, Chloé. I owe you one.”

She waved him off. “Don’t worry about it.” Chloé got up to throw away her apple core. “So you think you can handle food now? I’ve got plenty of fresh fruit.”

“Um, yeah sure. That apple looked pretty good.” Chloé brought another apple back for him. “Thanks,” he said as he took it from her. He took a bite and just observed her as she vaguely returned her attention to her laptop. “So um…did I do anything else stupid last night?” She raised an eyebrow at him with a sassy smile, eliciting another eye roll. “Okay, obviously I made a lot of bad decisions last night, but…you know…anything to tell the grandkids some day?”

Chloé thought a moment. “I don’t think anything else super noteworthy happened… Oh! I did see you making out with someone at one point.”

He raised his eyebrows at her, though he was clearly not surprised. “Who?”

“I didn’t know him—er, sorry,” she interrupted herself. The artist cocked his head in silent question. “I had a very enlightening conversation with Rae last night. She told me I shouldn’t assume gender.” He smiled at her but said nothing and just took another bite of apple. “So I think…the person you were making out with was male presenting. But I didn’t know them.”

“Hm…” He chewed as he seemingly searched his mental inventory for people it might have been. “Can you describe them?”

“Um…a bit taller than you…dark hair…they had a tattoo on their right arm…”

Nathanaël paused in his chewing. “A tattoo of what?”

“I think it was a snake? It was coiling all the way up their arm.”

“…Shit.” Nathanaël took another bite as he contemplated. “What do you think the chances are he doesn’t remember?”

“Ummm I mean, that was pretty early in the night. No one was really as drunk as you were by then.” Rather than the groan she was expecting, Nathanaël merely took a bite of his apple, looking rather concerned. “Why? Who is he?”

“That’s Adam…He was…” He glanced at her, seemingly unsure whether or not he should share this with her. “He was my first…partner.”

“Oh,” she said, having expected something much worse based off his facial expression. “Bad break up?”

“You could say that…” Nathanaël stared off at nothing in particular as he continued to eat the apple. His eyes looked as if they were facing a sea of troubles. She wanted to ask him what was so wrong, since he seemed to be on fairly good terms with most of his exes. But she could tell he really didn’t want to talk about it from the way he had answered her.

Chloé reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head toward her. “Hey,” she said with a reassuring smile. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

He smiled back at her, though he obviously wasn’t convinced. “Thanks Chloé.”

She put her attention back to her work for a few minutes while Nathanaël ate the rest of his apple. He eventually got up to discard it and she thought it a good time to ask the question that had been in the back of her mind all night.

“So Nath,” she began.

“Hm?” he asked as he sat back down at the table.

“For real, why did you drink so much last night?”

He raised an eyebrow at her, causing light to glint off the piercing he had there. “You mean I didn’t pour my heart out to you in my drunken state?”

 _Well you said some interesting things last night, but…_ “Not exactly,” she replied. He scratched the back of his head nervously. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“It’s…It’s nothing major,” she thought his expression said otherwise, “just…work has been slow lately. Getting harder to pay for rent.” Chloé scowled.

“How is that possible? You’re one of the most popular artists in Paris.”

He turned his head to stare out the window and huffed a laugh that felt sarcastic and terribly tortured. “Yeah, well…it’s kind of hard to sell paintings that don’t exist.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…I haven’t been painting lately.” He continued to stare out the window, those bright teal eyes looking so beautiful yet so sad in the morning light.

“Why not?” she asked delicately.

With an aggravated sigh, the artist put his face in his hands. “I don’t know,” his muffled voice replied, sounding hopeless and so _so_ tired. “The inspiration always used to come to me as easily as breathing but lately it just… _doesn’t_ and I _don’t know what’s wrong with me._ ” She watched as his head sunk down to the table, covered by his arms. He might have been crying, but with his face obscured from view the way it was, she couldn’t tell.

Chloé sat there in silence, completely at a loss for words. Never had she thought she would see him like this, even back when he was that dorky kid in her class that she made fun of. Though she never would have admitted it back then, she always knew he was going to go far with his art. Every piece he made was beautiful and he had such a lust for it that she knew it would keep him going through life. It was something she had envied back when she still didn’t know what she was going to do with her life. That he had such a love for something he was so good at was awe inspiring to her, and to suddenly see him look so _lost_ …it was crushing.

“How long has this been happening?”

“A few months,” he mumbled. _Wow_. To think that he had been falling apart for _months_ and this was the first she was hearing about it. She wondered what other secrets he held, and whether or not he was taking care of himself.

Chloé’s perfectly manicured nails clicked against the tabletop as she thought. Eventually, she decided on her course of action. “Alright,” she declared. “Go take a shower.”

Head still face down, he replied with a dead, “What?”

“You heard me. Go take a shower. You’ve been awake for half an hour. It’s time to get up.” He turned his head to glare at her. The whites of his eyes were slightly bloodshot.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of high strung?”

“Yes, you have, now hurry up. We have plans today.”

“What? Since when?”

“Since now. Get up.” With one last roll of his eyes, the artist stood from the table and traipsed toward the bathroom.

“Yes _mom_.”

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone is wondering, this is the song Nath sang at the party:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftE9uSPpecs  
> A couple months ago, I started imagining him singing Punk Goes Pop and nOW I CAN'T STOP.


End file.
